


up top (and down below)

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 15:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17645828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: Pops wants Hermes to keep an eye on Hades, and let him know what he’s up to. But Hermes has never been much of a tale teller (least not on demand) and besides, Hades is a hard one to watch. Hermes can think of no other member of their family who shuts their damn mouth and keep to themselves as much as Hades does.Apart from his wife, no one else knows Hades as well as Hermes does.





	up top (and down below)

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I have fallen into this fandom and I can't get up.

Pops wants Hermes to keep an eye on Hades, and let him know what he’s up to. 

But Hermes has never been much of a tale teller (least not on demand) and besides, Hades is a hard one to watch. Hermes can think of no other member of their family who shuts their damn mouth and keep to themselves as much as Hades does, except for maybe Hephaestus, but Aphrodite is working hard on needling that out of him. 

Hades has no one to needle him and so he just gets on with his work like Hermes does, and Hermes respects that. Pops is always up in everyone else’s business and Hermes has never seen him work a day, so if he wants to cut Hades a break from Pops’ bullshit, then he will. Ain’t nothing Pops could do to him anyway. Hermes has the luck of knowing a lot of things that others might wish he didn’t know. 

**

Chivvying the dead to the Underworld is messy, boring work, but someone has to do it. Hermes doesn’t mind so much. Humans are soft and they don’t last for long, but they make some good stuff while they are around. They make good songs, and seeing as he is the god they see the most of, some of those songs are about him. He doesn’t want to be written badly about in a song – that shit lasts forever, one way or another. 

So he goes on shepherding the souls on top of everything other damn thing he has to do, and sometimes he stops to see his uncle. Sometimes he will have an invitation that Hades rarely accepts, and sometimes Hermes just feels like mischief. 

“You should come up top,” he’ll say. “The humans have some good poets, and whisky’ll make you tingle.”

And Hades will look at him over his glasses – he doesn’t need them, why does he wear them? – and shake his head. 

Or Hermes will say, “Ain’t you lonely down here with all these souls? No shame in being lonely, even for a god.”

And Hades will laugh, deep in his throat, and hold Hermes’ shoulder too tight and he’ll say, “Don’t push me, nephew.”

But Hermes likes him, cos Hades is the only honest god he’s ever met, and if Hades wanted to hurt him, he’d have done it long ago.

**

Hades is up top, and Hermes can’t look away. 

And it’s weird cos Hades is a big boy and he can look after himself, but Hermes feels like – he feels possessive, like Hades is _his_ , and he doesn’t want no trouble. It’s never pretty when Hades comes up, and Pops and Uncle P never want him there, so Hermes doesn’t even know why they invite him or why Hades ever comes. 

But every so often he appears at the party, and the whole place is on the edge. Hermes doesn’t like fighting, least of all in the place that he calls home. So he watches Hades lurk at the edges. He hasn’t taken off his sunglasses, and Hermes can see Ares watching him too. Ares is an idiot with too much to prove to Pops, and there is a crackle in the air like something is about to give.

Then the doors swing open and Demeter steps in, and at her side is her kid, the goddess Kore, and boy how she has grown since Hermes last saw her.

And out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hades take off his sunglasses.

**

_Oh shit._

**

Hades has never summoned him before, and when he gets the call, Hermes drops everything he is doing and goes right on down. It ain’t like he has no idea about what the old man might be after, although he doesn’t quite believe it. 

Hades is at his desk, glasses on his nose, and Hermes doesn’t say anything because he is enjoying this too much. He knows his uncle well enough to see he’s trying to find something to say, and when has he ever been lost for words before?

This is too good. 

The Underworld is cold, usually, but there’s something about it today that makes it seem warmer. Eventually Hermes tires of standing, and of the silence, so he sits down uninvited and raises his eyebrow.

“You called?”

Hades glares at him and opens his mouth, then closes it again. His jaw clamps shut and Hermes watches as the muscle twitches. He’d never say it out loud, but right then his uncle looks a lot like Pops when he’s fixin’ on a problem. 

So Hermes just waits some more, cos he’s got a lot to do but right now there’s nowhere else he wants to be. 

Of all the things he knew about his uncle, it is a surprise that there might be some kind of heat in him after all. 

“I’m not going up top anymore,” Hades says eventually, shuffling paper on his desk. “You can tell your father that for me.”

It isn’t what he wanted to say, and they both know it, but Hermes will take it for now, cos something has Hades spooked and the truth will come out in the end. 

**

It is also the first lie that Hades has ever told him, cos the next time Hermes sees him, he’s up top. His black car, sleek like a cat, ain’t exactly inconspicuous. So Hermes follows him, because he can, and he watches him drive to Demeter’s place. 

Hades leaves the car in the trees and goes close enough that he – and Hermes – can see the woman in the garden. Kore waters the flowers and sings to them, and Hades crosses his arms, watching her. 

And it’s only when Hades finally turns away with a sigh that Hermes sees Kore turn and look straight at him, like she knew he was there all along. 

**

Hermes stops following after that. It ain’t his business right now. He’ll know soon enough.

**

Demeter’s shrieking rings through Pops’ halls, and Hermes doesn’t stick around long enough to hear the details. He’s down to the Underworld, fast as he can, and the first one he sees is Kore. She grins at him, and is it any surprise that even the God of Death was moved by her?

“Hey cousin,” she drawls. “Wondered when you’d be turning up.”

She’s wearing a black shirt that is too big for her, falling over golden skin, and she’s stunning. 

Then Hades appears, his shirt undone at the collar, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, and his hair is out of place. Turns out he can look pretty stunning too. 

“What do you want?” he growls, but Hermes ain’t afraid of him. Not when Hades looks worried, like he’s never looked before.

“Big trouble up top and it’s comin’ your way.”

“I figured as much.”

“She’s flipped, and Pops ain’t gonna be able to shut her up.”

While they talk, Kore sits and cuts open a pomegranate and, in the silence, her knife is the only sound as she prises out six seeds and eats them, one by one. The look on Hades’ face is one of surprise, but Hermes just shrugs when Hades looks at him. 

Pretty clear to him what choice Kore has just made.

**

And then she isn’t Kore anymore, she’s Persephone, and she brings the spring with her.

And Hades does his job, as always, and if he’s harder to talk to in the months that Persephone is away from him, well that’s only right. He’s allowed to miss his wife, after all, and Hermes doesn’t begrudge him. That’s just another way that Uncle Hades ain’t a lot like Pops. 

**

So when he realises that Hades is just as difficult whether Persephone is there or not, and that Hades ain’t come to meet her off the train for longer than he can rightly remember, it is almost too late. 

“Getting real hot down here,” Hermes says one day, dropping by the office with a message from Pops. “What you got in mind now then?”

“Leave me, Hermes.”

“But-”

“I said, go!” Hades slams his hands down on the desk, and there’s shadows on his face that Hermes has never seen before. For the first time, he looks like what he is – the God of Death. And he looks old. Like real old. 

“Okay, I hear ya. See you, uncle.”

Hermes has always liked his uncle well enough, and Persephone is his favourite cousin, but he’s never been worried about them before. For the first time in his life, he wishes that he was close enough with his uncle that he could offer him – something, anything. Comfort, he supposes, but who comforts the God of Death and gets away with it? 

_His wife. Should be her. And ain’t that a sad song._

**

Persephone comes to the bar sometimes – well, a lot more lately – and they dance and they drink and they have all the fun that she can’t have down below. She’s looking older too, and she doesn’t laugh like she used to laugh.

Whatever is going on, it ain’t something that Hermes can understand. 

But she still comes to the bar, so close to the railroad that sometimes Hermes can feel the heat coming up through the ground, and he wonders if she can feel it too. 

And then one day, a poet walks into the bar with a guitar on his back, and it’s time to right some old wrongs. 

It’s an old song, and Hermes always knew they’d sing it again.


End file.
